Emilio Gauna and his park

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So lately it´s been obscenely hot, especially for november (northerners, think of it as may). Consequently, I´ve been devoting a lot of my ridiculous excess of free time to shady parks and ice cream. Considering that it´s pouring rain today and there´s been a lightning storm going on since last night at about 1230, it strikes me as a good time to reflect on all the parks (that is, rather than try to experience any of them).

I´ll start with my most recent park experience. Yesterday morning I was sitting in a plaza not far from where I live which is basically a park in itself. I suppose the concepts of plaza and park are distinguished from one another by the ratio of grass to pavement, but almost all the parks and plazas here are elaborately enough landscaped that the distinctions start to blur. In any case I was reading this excellent book that I bought the other day that takes place in Buenos Aires in the late 20s (El Sueno de Los Heroes by Adolfo Bioy Casares) and they mentioned parque Saavedra. I had been wondering how I was going to fill what would be a long, hot, empty day- so I surrendered to my sudden and indeed somewhat arbitrary impulse that told me "Let´s go there!" I whipped out my guia "T" and found it almost immediately just by flipping a bit, and I also noticed nearby la calle Freyre, a street on which I would actually be able to find a specific address that was mentioned in the book. So I got kind of exited about exploring this place- perhaps I would find other landmarks from the book, like la Confiteria los Argonautos or el Club Atletico Platense. The particular address I was searching for was of a store, in the back of which the girlfriend of the protagonist rehearses for a play.

So I took the subte line D to the end, endowed suddenly with a peculiar and irrational sense of purpose. Looking around at the other people in the car, I amusedly wondered if any of them were on such important business as mine. As I got off and started to penetrate the neighborhood that formed the setting for the book´s events, I didn´t feel a particular sense of familiarity nor anything like that. I wasn´t particularly disappointed, because it was a beautiful place and I didn´t know what, if anything, I had been expecting in the first place. However I couldn´t help but feel my heart rate start to increase, a mounting sense of excitement as I followed la calle freyre and the address numbers approached that which I sought: 3721. In the book the girl, Clara, gives it to Emilio Gauna, the protagonist, written on a movie ticket with some sort of makeup apparatus. It was actually kind of hilariously ironic when I finally arrived, because at the particular address the sidewalk was blocked by scaffolding and construction equipment- whatever was there seemed to have been recentlyt demolished to make way for a new building. I shrugged my shoulders and continued on to the park.

Parque Saavedra was pretty spectacular and really, considering the standard of park quality I´ve observed in this city, I couldn´t have expected otherwise. Its more suburban location and rather uncharacteristically vast stretches of grass made it more reminiscent to me of parks at home- but the rainbow-colored playground equipment and carousel and the palm trees kept me firmly rooted here in Buenos Aires. The shape was ovalline like parque centenario, another of the wonder parks I´ve observed here. Many aspects of it seemed brand new, for example the fresh white and yellow running demarcations on the backtop. Also, considering the insane proliferation of chessboard tableas it could easily have played host to a major tournament. But it was surprisingly deserted, save for some high school students, a lone sunbather, a few people with their kids/dogs, and a forlorn man on a bench who made me self conscious as I took pictures. It seemed sort of forgotten or unknown by the park-patronizing community, but I´m sure the emptiness was due mostly to the heat, as it was already afternoon.

So as is my wont I´ve gotten tired of writing before have gotten down everything that I´d planned, so for now at least I´ll just list the other parks that have rocked my world lately:

-Reserva ecologica costanera sur
-parque 3 de febrero/los bosques de palermo
-parque centenario

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